My dear parishioners,
Peace! On the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, 7 October, 2019, Pope Francis established the feast of Our Lady of Loreto, to be observed each year on the 10th of December. At the same time Pope Francis proclaimed a Lauretan Jubilee Holy Year to run from 8 December, 2019 through 10 December, 2020. There are fifty-one invocations in the Litany of Loreto. The following is a reflection on the seventh invocation: Mother most chaste, pray for us.
To invoke the intercession of Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary as Mother most chaste is to acknowledge her chastity and our desire to be chaste no less. It is remarkable that in an unchaste age such as ours (how much gratuitous sex is presented on television, radio, internet, in print…) we nevertheless ask the help of the Mother of God in this regard.
There are ten verses in Sacred Scripture (Douay Rheims) where we specifically find the term “chaste.” The Greek term hagnos translates not only as chaste, but clean, pure, perfect, innocent and modest. Mary is all of these and more.
Mother Church herself is considered “a chaste virgin” betrothed to Christ (cf. 2 Corinthians 11:2). Men (1 Timothy 3:2,8; 5:22; Titus 2:2) and women (1 Timothy 3:11; Titus 2:5) alike are all called to be chaste (James 3:17; 1 Peter 3:4).
In his Summa Theologiae Saint Thomas Aquinas, OP (+1274) treats both the virtue of chastity (II-II Q. 151, A. 1-4) and the vice of lust (II-II Q. 153, A. 1-5, Q. 154, A. 1-12) all under the heading of the cardinal virtue of temperance. While Saint Mary ever virgin and Saint Joseph never consummated their marital union, husband and wife within Marriage need not sin in the nuptial embrace. “Not every venereal act is a sin” (Summa Theologiae II-II Q. 153, A. 2). After all, God commands us to be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 9:7).
In his Theology of the Body, Saint John Paul II (+2005) treats chastity in five of the one hundred twenty-nine addresses (TOB 50, 55-58), albeit under the heading of “purity.” The anti-chastity vice of lust is similarly treated by the Polish Pontiff (TOB 26, 29, 31-32, 40). If lust is the fruit of the breach of the covenant with God, chastity is the fruit of keeping the covenant, which Our Lady has kept and does keep. Lust distorts the right order of relationships as to the communion of persons, while chastity respects and safeguards these. Lust limits the nuptial meaning of the body while chastity allows its radiance to shine forth. Mary’s Immaculate Heart triumphs in the battle between chaste love and lust.
Purity belongs properly to chastity with the one sometimes used to designate the other (cf. Summa Theologiae II-II Q. 151, A. 4). “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8). Saint Mary, the Blessed Virgin, is pure and chaste in her heart and in her deeds, alone and with others. Father John Arthur Orr